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Category: WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m only a chapter or two further along with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson. I’ve definitely got to pick up the pace. Story is getting moving a bit, but still in its early phase. Also, a small detail spoken by Lando has expanded on something I had assumed from the film, which is nice.

I’m only about 60 pages into White Tears by Hari Kunzru, which is a little disappointing. It’s been a scatter-brained few days, so I didn’t get as much reading done as I wanted to. I am enjoying the book so far, though. The writing style is fairly unique, using dialogue sparsely and presenting the story in a more detached way, thanks to the perspective character. Anomalous media is a really fun concept to me, so I love the ghostly recordings that Seth, the main character, doesn’t remember recording while walking through New York City with his hidden mic. It feels as if the story is only just building itself up, though, so I don’t have a clear sense of where this is going or what it’s more specifically about yet.

Recently Finished

Despite my lack of progress with my other books on the go, I did manage push myself to read through a comic book volume; last night I read through Star Wars: Rebels and Rogues by Greg Pak et al. This is Pak’s first volume with this series, but it was easily one of the best. The core cast is split up three ways to do their own mission for the Rebellion, yet I was invested in each of them pretty equally. The only standout was Chewbacca and C-3PO getting to do their own mission together, wherein they have to place explosives on an unstable planetoid, lure in some Star Destroyers, then blow the planet and take out the ships. Problem is, the seemingly uninhabited planet is actually populated by rock people, adding a perfect moral quandary to their mission.

Reading Next

This is still anybody’s guess, except for the fact that I’ll likely read more Star Wars comics. Don’t know if I’ll continue reading Doctor Aphra volumes, or if I’ll start the Age of Republic book, though. Either way, I’m too early on in White Tears to have another novel lined up in my mind.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I have read another chapter of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson since last week, though this is less than I was hoping I’d get to. Nevertheless, I am appreciating the slower pace compared to the film, giving a more thoughtful look at how characters are processing what’s going on.

Recently Finished

In an uncommon move on my part, I actually managed to finish reading Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith in about a week. I’m happy I was able to push myself to read it so fast, as I’m still nervous about finishing my to-read list for the year. I enjoyed this book quite a lot, though the science was a lot to take in sometimes. An appreciable amount of time is spent explaining aspects of the mind and how we currently understand its emergence in an evolutionary context, which I genuinely feel I learned from, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take some more mental legwork to understand. There are plenty of charming anecdotes and details of experiments about octopus behaviour that were a lot of fun and helped to balance the denser science.

Reading Next

Since I was being choosy between Other Minds and White Tears by Hari Kunzru about a month ago, I will be reading the latter next. Other than that, I don’t know why I’ve been so neglectful of my graphic novels as of late. I’ve always got a number of them left unread, and I just bought a lot of digital Star Wars comics since they were on sale. It’d be the easiest way in the world to get caught back up with my Goodreads challenge, but something is holding me back. Dunno what’s up with that.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Last night I started reading Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith, a science and philosophy book about the emergence of consciousness, with a specific focus on the minds of octopuses. I only got a couple of chapters in, but I’m rather enjoying it so far. There was a fear that it would make for a dry nonfiction read, but fortunately that hasn’t been the case so far. I do noticeably have to work harder while reading it, though. So far it has been exploring the origins of the mind itself in life on Earth, considering the earliest animals and when they started sensing the world and other creatures around them, and how complex this sense was. It has made for a lot of new terms to learn, since I’m not exactly familiar with life that existed before the Cambrian era.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend I finished reading Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, the 16th novel in the Discworld series. I may be disappointed Death didn’t have a more active role in this story, but darn it this book was just so just solidly enjoyable that it didn’t matter too much. What was most surprising was how much I warmed to the story of “The Band With Rocks In” and their explosion onto the music scene of Ankh-Morpork. While the music itself was a more typical invasive force affecting the Discworld in a way that mirrors something about our own modern world, I appreciated how it was used more as a vehicle to explore the effects and costs of sudden fame. I posted a full review yesterday, which you can check out here.

Reading Next

Shucks, I haven’t made up my mind about this just yet. I’ve only just started Other Minds after finishing Soul Music. I did just buy a bunch of Star Wars graphic novels a couple of weeks ago, though, I’ll probably be checking out some more of those.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m close to half way through Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, the 16th Discworld novel, and I’m continuing to enjoy it a lot. I do wish we’d get more time reading about Death himself, as he’s clearly going through some stuff, but Susan and Buddy are making for more than worthy perspective characters in their respective story lines too. I’ve especially warmed to the latter, which is where the musical focus of the story comes from. Pratchett is clearly using this plot line as a vehicle to tell as many Rock industry jokes and references that he can, and I can sense the glee coming from it in a way that makes me smile. It’s yet another story about a force invading the Discworld too, but I’m finding it better told than the previous ones I’ve read.

I also started reading Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson, the novelization of Episode IX. I’m only about 40 pages in, but already I’m appreciating the better insight into the story that it’s providing. Especially missed from the film, which couldn’t be helped, was a deeper look at the relationship between Leia and Rey as master and apprentice. Carson does a really good job of faithfully capturing the voices of the characters as well, which markedly contrasts with something else I finished this past week. More on that later. I’d prefer the film were more fleshed out, to be sure, but as a lover of the universe and characters I’m feeling rather satisfied with what this book is providing so far.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend I read through a single graphic novel, Star Wars: Allegiance by Ethan Sacks et al, and it was an unfortunately rough read. It’s a four issue miniseries collected into one volume and it tries to to somehow tell two separate story lines under such limitations. One was about Finn and Poe trying to secure weapons for the Resistance, with bounty hunters in pursuit, and the other was Leia, Rey, and the rest traveling to Mon Cala to try and get the king there to pledge ships to their cause. They weren’t the worst ideas, but they were thin and played out like filler. It would have benefited much more from focus on a single story. Much of the dialogue felt forced and awkward too. I was a little interested in what he was trying to go for with Rey, but for the most part came off as a little out of character.

Reading Next

Since it’s likely I’ll be finished with Soul Music by next week, I suppose I ought to finally choose what book I’m going to read next from my to-read list. As I write this, I really haven’t made up my mind yet. I guess I will go with…Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Things are a little fantasy-heavy at the moment, I really ought to vary things a bit by reading some science nonfiction. I do hope that the writing style doesn’t slow my reading progress to a crawl; that’s always a slight concern with nonfiction. We shall see.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m just over a hundred pages into Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, the 16th novel in the Discworld series, which I started over the weekend. I’m excited to finally dig into the third Death novel, though disappointingly he is once again sharing the spotlight with others. Well, mildly disappointing. I just really like him. It’s partly about his granddaughter Susan too, so in her discovering her connection with him and the memories she’s forgotten, it is very much about him even when he’s not on the page. The anthropomorphic personification actively dealing with grief over the deaths of his daughter and son-in-law has me most interested, though, so I hope there’s a good amount of that. Not sure how I feel about all the rock music stuff yet. It’s the odd man out in a trio of plot lines.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend I finished reading The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel, the first book in the Frey & McGray series of mystery novels. I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It was an entertaining read much of the time, and when the characters are actively engaged with trying to solve the mystery I was pretty invested, but they were both just so exaggerated as characters. The writing leaned into their “odd couple” roles to a fault, and it just got grating by the end. I may need some assurances that these characteristics are dialed back in further books if I’m going to continue this series. I liked the book enough that I’m still curious, but we’ll see. I posted a full review on Monday, which you can check out here.

Reading Next

I still haven’t made up my mind about what to move on to from my to-read list for the year, but I have made a resolution to read the novelization of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson, which I purchased a copy of on Star Wars day. Since I don’t want it to cut into getting through my list, I’ve decided to make sure I commit free time I would otherwise spend on hobbies like video games or TV shows to reading this book. Though it didn’t stick the landing in a lot of ways, I still really liked the film and want to learn the finer details that were for some reason left on the cutting-room floor.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m still in the midst of The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel, just a little over halfway through. I’ve warmed to the book some more since last week, though admittedly it has more to do with how much the mystery has captured by interest, rather than the characters. They’re still their trope-y selves: Frey is a prim jerk with a conscience and McGray is boorish yet intelligent. I’m still waiting for the penny to drop on them learning to like one another. I find I’m most interested in how much the novel will commit to it’s implied supernatural elements. Frey is the perspective character and sees it all as nonsense, whereas McGray is a believer, so I wonder if it will be debunked, left vague so neither loses, or if Frey’s worldview will be turned upside down.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week. That’s what I get for neglecting comic book volumes. My Goodreads challenge has suffered a tad too. I’ll have to fix that.

Reading Next

While a potential comic book read is a flurry of possibilities, I still have the adamant intention to pick up Soul Music by Terry Pratchett as the next novel I read. That will get me halfway through the Discworld novels I’ve allotted for the year. After that, I’m not certain what I will pull from my to-read list for 2020, but I’ve narrowed it down to Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith or White Tears by Hari Kunzru. The former is a nonfiction look into the intelligence of cephalopods, especially octopuses, and the latter is a novel centred around music that is partly ghost story, partly murder mystery. I don’t remember a lot about the second book, to be honest, but I’d like to keep it that way. I guess I’ll have to see which I’m in the mood for when the time comes, at any rate.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Over the weekend I started reading The Strings of Murder, a locked-room mystery by Oscar de Muriel set in Edinburgh, Scotland in the late Victorian era. I’m finding my impressions to be a lot more mixed than is normal for me. On the one hand, I am enjoying reading it; the writing style is fun and easy to get into and I’ve made surprising progress considering my usual pace as of late. I really like the setting too, which highlights the dirtier sides of the era. On the other hand, I’ve not completely invested in the duo of characters yet, inspectors Frey and McGray. They’re a fairly trope-y duo, the typical sort of odd couple, and I’ve found them a tad forced so far. I’ve been steadily warming to them, but I feel like after nearly 150 pages I should well be beyond that.

Recently Finished

On Sunday I finished reading The Crocodile Hunter by Steve & Terri Irwin, making it officially my second reread of the year (a rarity for me). Reflecting on it all, it’s kind of surprising to me how the actual Crocodile Hunter show is treated as more happenstance than the focus of the book, considering the title. It is, appropriately, much more concerned with sharing the nitty gritty of how Steve performs crocodile capture and relocation, alongside the more personal history of the authors. You really do get a clear sense of just how passionate they are about wildlife. I considered writing a review, but decided not to. I’m happy to share here, but beyond that this reread was more for me, I suppose.

Reading Next

I mean to focus more on my to-read list for the year, and in that vein I think I’m going to crack open Soul Music by Terry Pratchett next, the 16th Discworld novel. I feel a little guilty falling back to this typical fictional haunt for me so soon, but it’s the next book in the Death sub-series. Who could honestly resist?

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m still in the middle of reading The Crocodile Hunter by Steve & Terri Irwin. I’m really enjoying it, but I wish I’d been faster about getting it finished. Some other things took precedent, which slowed my reading down. Oh well, here we are. I got surprisingly emotional during the last few chapters written by Terri, talking about how she met Steve. This was of course written before his untimely passing, so knowing what the future holds for the authors made some things retroactively sad. This book seems written for an easy reading experience, so it’s actually got me wanting to check out other books written about the Irwins that go into more detail.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend I did manage to read through Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians by Ricardo Delgado. It was a much shorter reading experience from the omnibus, telling only one story throughout. I enjoyed it quite a bit; the art is fantastic and packed with small details. There are accompanying essays about how Delgado was influenced by old Westerns and Samurai movies when writing this story and the influence is easy to see. I was most interested in how he utilized the herd of sauropods in the story, giving them a more active role rather than being the usual big, lumbering herbivores that are often terrorized by predators. I’m sad to see that there aren’t any more of these books at the moment. I hope Delgado plans create more.

Reading Next

Since I’ve been so indecisive about what to read next, I’m just going to push myself to read something unfamiliar to me on my list: The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel. All I can recall is that it’s the first in a series of fairly standalone mysteries, this one being a locked room mystery about a violinist murdered in his home. I keep saying I want to check out more mysteries, it’s time to make good. I was tempted to start reading Different Seasons by Stephen King, but I got paranoid that I have too many authors I keep going back to every year.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Last night I started reading The Crocodile Hunter by Steve & Terri Irwin, a memoir by the pair published before Steve’s untimely passing. I first read this book as a kid; I wasn’t much of a reader then, so it was one of those anomalous books that caught my interest but didn’t spark regular reading from me. I’ve always been something of a reptile nut, and I absolutely loved the Crocodile Hunter show back then, so I wanted to know all about the energetic and affable host. The writing is a little more awkward than I remember, but not to the point that I’m not enjoying it. I expect to have this reread finished relatively soon, as it’s not very long nor densely packed.

Recently Finished

The other night I finished reading The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor, the third standalone Welcome to Night Vale novel. I expressed my misgivings about this book last week, and after steadily reading through it over since then I must say that they were most soundly quelled. This has definitely become my most favourite Night Vale novel. The curtain is peeled back quite a lot for the character, but in such a way that turned out deeply compelling. Just the right amount of information was still kept obscure, and the story itself becomes so gut-wrenching and dark that it was oddly spellbinding. My interest in the series in general feels invigorated after reading this book.

Reading Next

I’m currently mulling over what book to pull from my yearly to-read list next. Haven’t pinned anything down with definite interest yet, but I’ll have to pick something soon. Other than that, expect I will have read the graphic novel Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians by Ricardo Delgado by next week, as I meant to before I got completely enthralled by the Faceless Old Woman.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Over the weekend I started reading The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor, the third Welcome to Night Vale novel. Like its predecessors, this is a standalone story. You needn’t have read the previous books, nor listened to the podcast series, though if you haven’t you will likely have a lot of questions. I have some apprehensions about this book, but so far I am enjoying it. I have these misgivings because the Faceless Old Woman is an enigmatic, creepy character in the series. I am worried that a book dedicated to her origin will be pulling back the curtain too far. That being said, I do really like the way she tells her story in the first-person, plus much of it takes place outside of Night Vale, which is kind of unprecedented. So far I’m optimistic.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week, but that’s okay.

Reading Next

For starters, a graphic novel has jumped to the head of the line. I just bought a digital copy of Ages of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians by Ricardo Delgado last week and I’m really looking forward to cracking it open (so to speak). I read the omnibus for this series last year and it was a really unique reading experience. This series uses nothing but visual storytelling to tell its tales of these ancient beasts that once roamed the Earth, and I love that about it alone. Also, dinosaurs are awesome. Other than that, I’ve been thinking a more and more about rereading The Crocodile Hunter by Steve & Terri Irwin, which is a memoir by the famous pair that I first read as a kid. A lot of it has stuck with me and I’d love to give it a second look after all this time.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.